Thirty-seventh annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1874.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-seventh annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1874. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Scheme however follows scheme now-a-days in such rapid succession that it is well to be guarded against merely tentative practices. It is not always easy to separate what is really valuable from what is too often comparatively useless. The various novelties of opinion and practice growing up with the love of change, has led to what Sir Henry Holland describes as “mental aberration:” “the present state of physical science becomes burdened (he says) with its weight of discoveries.” The comfort of the House and the health of the patients have been satisfactory and good throughout the year: there has been no contagious or epidemic disease, and very few accidents have taken place. With the exception of acci¬ dental falls in the cases of two women whose legs were broken, no injury of a serious character has occurred. The attendants have been generally vigilant and careful, and to their constant oversight may be attributed this pre¬ servation from injuries and accidents. The patients have enjoyed their usual gratifications beyond the Asylum precincts, pleasure parties, associate meetings, dances at home, and sea-side picnics. In the newly-erected Asylums, entertainments of different kinds are more extensively encouraged, upon the true principle that they form part of the most salutary treatment of the insane. There has been a great deal of work done throughout the year : an old drying-house has been converted into a wash-house on the male side; it is made conveniently accessible to the old men in the infirmary. Better bath rooms and increased water-closet accommodation have been made on each side of the House ; the decayed roofing on the long back passage on the female side has been entirely re¬ moved; new roofing to the broken and decayed covered-way on the male side. The old roof of the House always needs repair : on stripping the tiles the beams have been found to B